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Diving into the New Gutenberg WordPress Editor

Few changes and alterations have been made in the current WordPress visual editor over the years, and it has stayed pretty much save for the most part. Whereas, flipping the coin round, WordPress has evolved from just being a blogging-focused platform.

A few elements have been added and altered from its inception, many developers still think it is time for a change. Many other platforms, such as Medium or Ghost, provide a unique and refreshing experience to its users, why can’t WordPress?

The WordPress development company has been working on the new Gutenberg WordPress editor for more than 6 months now with the goal of making the experience of adding rich content to WordPress much simpler and even more enjoyable. The core team is working hard on the new project aiming to revolutionize the field of content creation.

This article features to give you detailed knowledge about the new Gutenberg WordPress editor and its pros and cons.

What is Gutenberg?

Gutenberg is the codename of new WordPress editor, named after Johannes Gutenberg, who invented a printing press with movable type about 500 years ago. It is a new content creating platform that optimizes for direct manipulation of the visual presentation of the content. It makes your experience a lot easier than the current visual editors requiring indirect means such as meta boxes. The current visual editors, unlike Gutenberg editor, require us to utilize shortcodes, HTML, text formatting, widgets and embeds to make things work. While Gutenberg editor simplifies such a long way to build a page into a single, searchable flow and UI umbrella.

About its installation, currently, Gutenberg plugin has over 4000 active installations out of 75000 total downloads with a rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Pros of Gutenberg WordPress Editor

Here are a few advantages we see with the current Gutenberg editor:

Gutenberg provides a less distracting experience with more screen space.

For publishers that prefer the newer Medium style editing experience, WordPress Gutenberg editoris the best platform for them to get a whole new refreshing experience.

Blocks are fun to use and the new alignment options introduced in the Gutenberg WordPress editor are a step forward for larger resolution screens and full-width templated and responsive sites.

Now, there’s no need to worry when you have to make a quick edit on your phone while on the go. Gutenberg has made it easier as it already works great on mobiles and this can be utilized in every way possible.

The ability for theme and plugin developers to create their own custom blocks is, again, a great feature adding to its benefits.

The most important thing it offers is it is easier to use even for the beginners.

Cons of Gutenberg WordPress Editor

As every coin has two sides, the current Gutenberg editor also has a few cons. But remember, it is still in the testing phase, so a lot of these things will probably be fixed or added.

It is currently missing Markdown support.

While it is considered an easy to use tool for beginners, it can be harder for some to learn.

As of October 2017, Gutenberg does now support meta boxes. However, this is only initial support and it will require developers hopping on board.

It doesn’t support responsive columns yet. A lot of times this is a reason people install visual builder plugins or shortcode plugins, is to get the column feature alone. Columns are definitely a need that should be in core.

With a number of themes and plugins, backward compatibility is going to be a huge issue going forward. Out of all the WordPress updates, this one is probably going to be the one that causes the most work for Responsive web developers.

Some are worried about the accessibility of Gutenberg. Joost de Valk, the developer of Yoast SEO brought up this concern.

Web developers have started voicing their concerns with Gutenberg in order to make it better and eliminate most of its cons.

Many people are still wondering if Gutenberg editor will be optional. The answer is NO. Once it is rolled out officially in the WordPress core, it can’t be turned off, as it will become the official WordPress editor.